US and Russia put preparations for Trump-Putin meeting on hold - NBC News
Photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump (Getty Images)
US and Russian officials may have suspended preparations for the summit in Budapest involving President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin, according to NBC News correspondent Garrett Haake on Twitter (X).
An unnamed senior White House official told Haake that planning for a US-Russia leaders’ meeting in Budapest has been put "on hold."
He clarified that the phone conversation between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov yesterday, October 20, was "productive." However, according to Trump, both sides are not sufficiently prepared for negotiations to justify moving forward with preparations for the meeting.
Trump-Putin meeting
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on a new meeting in Budapest during a phone call that took place on October 16.
At the time, Trump noted that a meeting between senior US and Russian officials was scheduled for this week. The delegations were to be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
However, today, October 21, the Financial Times, citing an unnamed German official, reported that the meeting between Rubio and Lavrov is now scheduled for October 30 — a week later than initially planned.
Notably, after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week, Trump called on Ukraine and Russia to halt hostilities along the front line.
For his part, Lavrov rejected this idea, emphasizing that there would be no ceasefire without addressing the so-called "root causes of the conflict."
